


Into the Labyrinth

by AERCHIVE (aerClassic)



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: ADVENTURE!, Labyrinth AU, M/M, MAYHEM!, Mingi is a dragon!, Slow Updates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 06:21:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26468605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aerClassic/pseuds/AERCHIVE
Summary: Through unfortunate circumstance, Yunho finds himself trapped in a strange land populated by fantasy creatures and flora that may or may not be sentient. He's given seven days to reach the highest tower of the castle at the center of Labyrinth if he wants to return home. But...does he?And what's the deal with this Goblin King anyway?
Relationships: Jeong Yunho/Kim Hongjoong
Comments: 3
Kudos: 31





	1. Chapter 1

**PROLOGUE**

Summer hits the bustling city of Seoul like a freight train. The heat warms the streets to the point it feels like slogging through a physical barrier just trying to get to the other side of a crosswalk. Already the buses are overcrowded with sweating bodies, the subway not much better though being underground and tad bit more air conditioned, and even the tiny convenience store Yunho frequents on his way to work feels muggy standing next to the coolers of soda and iced coffees.

Today is the day, though, and Jeong Yunho, 26, fresh from his military service requirement and finally clean shaven for the first time in weeks, is determined. No amount of heat or gross old men fanning their junk in the open walkways leading to his destination is going to ruin the surprise he’s saved up for over the last six months. He’s nervous, anyone would be, but the weighty velvet box in his pocket and the knowledge this is a sure thing keeps most of the jitters at bay.

His mother would be proud. She _is_ proud, had grabbed his neck that morning to sob well wishes and praises into his ear over her son bringing home a soon-to-be daughter. 

“The saju palja for the two of you is good,” She’d whimpered into a tear soaked handkerchief, “The shaman wouldn’t lie to me.”

(The shaman absolutely has.)

“I’m sorry,” Min Seoyeon tells him, closing the velvet box and sliding it back towards Yunho sitting across from her at the tiny bistro table. “I can’t accept this.”

Yunho met Min Seoyeon when they were both still freshmen at the local University. It’s a story he liked to tell often, the two of them being lost and confused in the meandering hallways and giggling when they’d both walked into the doorway of the wrong classroom. Seoyeon hadn’t been as effortlessly beautiful then as she is now, still had the last of her braces cutting into her gums (Yunho still thinks the lisp was adorable even if Seoyeon screamed bloody murder at him for mentioning it) and the awkward gangliness that came from the last of puberty’s cruel growth spurts—before she’d really grown into her bones. They exchanged numbers and had turned into fast friends over the course of the next few months.

When Yunho finally ( _finally_ ) got the balls to ask her out in their second year, she’d been ecstatic. They were fantastically in love and gross in equal measure. Their friends always talked about the other as if they were one person—“Where’s Yunho and Seoyeon?”, “Are Yunho’n’Seoyeon coming to the concert?” “If Yunho and Seoyeon don’t stop making out in the corner I’m getting the hose.”—and, if it weren’t for his impending military enlistment, they’d spoken about possibly moving in together after graduation.

“It’s only two years,” Yunho had told her while his chin wobbled at the entrance of the camp. “Just two measly years where I can call you every once in a while, we can write all the time, and then I’ll be back.”

Seoyeon nodded jerkily and then burst into tears, rubbing her snotty nose into Yunho’s only wool coat he couldn’t get dry cleaned while on base.

Now it’s two years later and the Min Seoyeon he thought he knew is pouting disinterestedly down at her phone.

While Yunho _proposed_.

“You can’t...what? I don’t understand.” Yunho reaches across the table to grab one of Seoyeon’s delicate hands, one of his favorite features. “Seoyeon-ie, talk to me.”

“I really am sorry, Yunho-yah,” Seoyeon sighs and gently removes her hand from Yunho’s grip. Several people in the cafe are starting to throw Yunho pitying looks. “You were gone—”

“I was in the military!”

“You were _gone_ ,” she stresses, flicking a lock of hair behind an ear. “You have to understand, I was so _lonely_ . All of my friends are still in the dating scene and, just for fun, I went along with them to a few meetings. And I...met someone.” Blood rushes loud in his ears. Yunho can’t believe this, of all people to cheat behind someone’s back like this. Not Seoyeon. Not _his_ Seoyeon. “I wanted to tell you when you called, but it was always so inconvenient and you were always so happy to hear me I just didn’t have the heart to say anything.”

“I chose to speak to you over my own mother for some of those phone calls,” Yunho says faintly.

Seoyeon at least has the decency to look shamed. “I don’t know what else to tell you, I’m sorry. For what it’s worth, I do love you, Yunho. It’s just...another kind of love now. Like what I'd feel for a brother.”

“Right.” Yunho’s hands shake when he drops the ring back into his pocket but his legs are steady when he stands, chair scraping loud in the otherwise hushed cafe. “Right. I’m going to...go. I think. I—yeah, bye.” 

Whatever Seoyeon says after gets lost in the sound of Yunho’s heart shattering into a thousand, million, _billion_ pieces.

It takes exactly fifteen steps to make it from their tiny table to the entrance, three to the edge of the sidewalk, and countless others to wander almost to the edge of the shopping market three miles downtown.

 _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry_ echoes like a bad mantra in his brain.

 _I’m sorry_. He passes a booth of nothing but kitschy phone charms. Seoyeon used to like the ones with knockoff Doraemon characters. He’d bought several where the eyes were looking in three different directions at once and she’d loved them wholeheartedly.

 _I’m sorry_. Another stall of wannabe Burberry jackets and crop tops. The distinctive plaid was Seoyeon’s favorite pattern. She wore it almost exclusively for the entirety of their junior year.

 _I’m sorry_. Vibrantly pink stationary, like the kind he’d receive letters on. 

_I’m sorry_. Pork mandu and pickles. Their first date snack. 

_I’m sorry_.

The market ends at a long row of tents displaying banners about love advice, compatibility, the surety of youthful couplings. 

_I’m so sorry_!

“Aaaaah I can’t take this!” Yunho screams, heedless of the people around him scrambling to get away from the man having an obvious psychotic break in the middle of a market.

“Having some trouble, young man? You look lost,” someone rasps at him.

The voice comes from a tent, smaller than the rest, nestled between one horrifically flamboyant bannered tent and another. The woman there is old, maybe in her eighties, covered head to toe in robes Yunho doesn’t think anyone of any age should be in during this heatwave. There’s a small table with a stack of uncut tarot in front of her and nothing else—no knee mat, no bowl for ‘offerings’ (bribes), no birth date cards to fill out: nothing.

“Um.” Yunho looks around. “Are you talking to me?” Pointing to himself.

“Who else is yelling at the heavens out in the open?” The woman beckons him forward with a gnarled hand. “Come in, come in, let me see you.”

Yunho walks in, of course, because he’s never been able to tell anyone ‘no’ to save his life—least of all someone so much older than himself. He sits on his knees when the woman gives him a rheumy-eyed smile. Yunho feels like he should warn her, because she looks nice for a shaman, and says, “I don’t need marriage advice if that’s what you’re trying to get out of me. My girlfriend just rejected my proposal.”

His chest aches at the admission.

“Did she now?” The woman holds a palm out until Yunho hesitantly places one of his own on top. It’s cold, somehow. Colder than it should be when it’s 70-something outside and rising. “Why don’t I read your fortune myself then, hm?”

“Is it going to cost me anything?” Yunho asks, because he’s gullible but he’s not _that_ gullible.

“Everything has a cost, young man,” she sniffs while rubbing a finger down the length of the largest crease in his palm. “If you’re talking about money, no. I don’t want your money.” A lock of gray hair escapes the robe pulled over her head.

“If not money, then what?”

Yunho has always been taught to respect the older generations. Help when they need help getting that last step up on the bus, stand up when they need a seat, offer his arm if they lose their footing, that kind of thing, but this woman is starting to make his skin crawl with nerves. She’s weirdly silent, for one; cold, for two; and the cards she’s flipping slowly—one by one by one by two—are unlike any tarot he’s seen in all his years accompanying his mother to shaman’s for luck or fortune readings.

“Time.” Once she’s removed twelve cards seemingly at random from her stack, the old woman looks up to flash him a wrinkled grin. Yunho snatches his hand back when she decides to release it. “Would you like to see what these cards have in store for you?”

“I—I guess so.” As unnerved as he is, this interaction is at least keeping his mind off of Seoyeon.

“This one,” She points to a card covered in what looks like imps, “Suggests tumultuous beginnings or an inability to make decisions.” She stacks another on top, sideways this time. “This one suggests a long journey for personal gain.” Three more stack from there. “An unlikely guardian. Poison—mmm, a bad omen. Anger, frailty, passion in a fight.” Several more stack from there until she gets to the last card—the visage of a man gazing hopefully into an open doorway. “Love. I see.”

Yunho shakes his head. “I don’t get it. What are you seeing?”

“Potential.” She shuffles the cards back into their former orderly stack. “Tell me, this girlfriend of yours--” She ignores Yunho’s muttered “ _Ex_ -girlfriend now,” and continues, “What did you like so much about her?”

“Ah, Seoyeon? She’s beautiful. The most beautiful woman you’d ever meet and smart as a whip.” He can feel the tears trying to well in the corner of his eyes and struggles to blink them away. Goddammit, he’s not going to break down in front of this creepy old hag if it’s the last thing he does. “We liked the same movies.”

The shaman is silent for a moment while Yunho tries to get a desperate grip on his emotions. “Is that all?”

“Excuse me?” He splutters incredulously.

“I said, is that all? She’s beautiful and smart and you liked the same movies?” The woman sucks at her teeth. “Young humans these days. No heart, no heart at all.”

Yunho should have never gone into this tent. The air is starting to feel charged in a way that makes his teeth ache and it’s not from the heat. Something about this woman isn’t right.

“What is your name, young man?” Her voice has gone weird and tinny.

The skin on his arms erupts in goose pimples, a shiver making a slow crawl down the length of his spine. He shouldn’t tell her. 

“Yunho, madam.”

“No,” she whispers back harshly, “Your full name. What is it?”

The hair on the back of his neck stands on end. “Jeong Yunho. My name is Jeong Yunho.”

She nods. “Stand up, Jeong Yunho.” 

He does, much in the same way as he did when a commanding officer told them to stand at attention not that long ago. It almost feels like a compelling energy forces him to his feet.

“Jeong Yunho,” she repeats and stands as well. Where Yunho thought she was frail and stooped, the old woman now stands almost as tall, if not taller, than himself and places a hand to the center of Yunho’s chest. “You have a choice to make, Jeong Yunho.”

She pushes him out of the tent.

Yunho would like to say that’s the end of it—she pushes him out of the tent, he falls on his ass in the middle of the sidewalk, and, once he’d scraped off the dust and the dirt, he turns back home to tell his mother the bad news.

What actually happens is this:

She pushes him out of the tent.

Yunho blacks out.

When he finally comes to, Yunho is lying face down in what feels like sand, eventually sneezing when some of the grit makes its way into his nasal cavity. Where the fuck did sand come from? Especially in Seoul where if you sat on the street you were more likely to land in a dirty puddle or sewage runoff or a pile of old cigarettes. A combination of all three more often than not.

“Ah, he’s awake.”

A man’s voice. Yunho groans, rolls so he can at least sit upright. He has to close his eyes against the suddenly bright glare of the sun. Wasn’t the dust count pretty high this morning? He’s pretty sure the app suggested thick face masks today. “What happened?”

“I’d like to ask you that myself.”

Yunho’s eyes finally adjust to the sunlight and he’s treated to a fantastic view.

Literally. The surrounding scenery looks like it’s straight out of a _fantasy novel_. He’s sitting in a desert populated by barren trees and a glimmering outline of what looks like a fortress. He can’t tell because it’s almost entirely hidden by a wall and two distressingly large obsidian doors behind a small fountain of a strange looking cherub.

It hurts when he pinches the skin of his elbow so Yunho knows this is somehow, beyond all reason, really _real_.

“Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore,” Yunho murmurs to himself. _How in the fuck—_

“I don’t know who or what a Toto is, or where Kansas may be, but you have some explaining to do.” A man with sharp features sits on a hovering mass of rock off to Yunho’s left with his chin resting on a palm held up by his knee. There’s a faint glimmer to the man’s skin—what’s showing at least, his face and part of his neck—almost as if he recently took a jaunty roll through the glitter aisle of a craft store. “How did you come to be in my Kingdom, invader?”

For the second time in what feels like as many minutes, Yunho faints.

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**_IN WHICH YUNHO MAKES SOME FRIENDS AND TERRORIZES THE LOCAL FLORA AND FAUNA_ **

Yunho wakes up.

Again.

All things considered he doesn’t necessarily  _ want to  _ but he does, and the scenery has not changed much since his faint.

He’s still in the weird dystopian looking desert but this time he’s not lying face down, thank god. The man from earlier seems to have taken mercy on him and propped Yunho against a nearby boulder so he at least doesn’t have to worry about sand in his mouth or up his nose or, god forbid, rattling around in his lungs on an inhale.

“Are you  _ quite  _ finished with the theatrics?” Comes the obviously put upon voice of the ridiculously sparkly man.

Thanks to his time running endurance drills, Yunho scrambles over the boulder he’s been leaning against in record time to put a barrier between himself and the potential enemy still sitting on a chunk of rock that is, beyond all reason, floating in midair; a slow bob up and down. It gives Yunho enough time to really take in the crazy getup this dude is rocking—pun not intended. He’s dressed peculiarly in a flowing white shirt, thin looking black leggings, and possesses what can only be described as a mullet with Flare—glittery tendrils curling this way and that with a collection of feathers hanging by one ear. Almost like an idol whose agency  _ hated  _ them. 

“Who are you?” 

“This again,” the guy huffs and shifts to sit cross legged on his makeshift chair. His leather gloves make a creaking sound when he grips at the edge of the rock.“If I give you a name, will you at least come to this side of the boulder?” 

Yunho glares in lieu of answering. 

The man rolls his eyes. 

“You know,  _ you  _ are the one who slammed through my barrier. As King, I could have you drawn and quartered for the audacity alone.”

There’s a stick only a few small steps to Yunho’s right, long enough to put a respectable distance between them but not so much as to be unwieldy if Yunho needed to be quick on an upswing. The stick has a promising pointed edge to it and it’s only two, maybe three, meters away. So close, Yunho laments, but so far. He decides to keep the conversation going until he can inch his way to the potential weapon. “You’re a king?”

“Not  _ a  _ king,” Mullet Man says, smug, “ _ The  _ King. The one and only heir to the Goblin Kingdom and the vast maze of the Labyrinth. Hongjoong, at your service.” He shifts forward in a mocking approximation of a bow. 

Yunho shifts imperceptibly closer to his goal. Less than two meters now. 

“Now,  _ who  _ are  _ you _ ?” Another few inches, Yunho thinks he could almost reach the end of it with his fingertips if he stretched. “And, more importantly,  _ how  _ did you get here?”

Just as Hongjoong finishes talking, Yunho’s fingers close over the end of the improvised weapon and he swings it full force at Hongjoong’s neck when the King floats forward close enough to be within reach. For his part, the king doesn't so much as flinch. Instead he grabs the stick with his hand on the downswing and says  _ something _ , Yunho would be hard pressed to repeat it, and the stick dissolves into a sudden cascade of iridescent bubbles. 

Hongjoong tsks, a harsh click of his tongue. “Childish. I was only asking questions, you didn’t have to try and hit me.” 

He pouts.

Yunho is too busy staring at the dissipating bubbles to notice. How is he supposed to escape from someone who can do  _ that _ ? The panic is finally settling in and Yunho’s breath quickens alongside his pulse. He hasn’t felt this powerless since the second night in boot camp as the dread of the next two years sunk in when their drill sergeant barged in and demanded everyone put on their 45 kilogram survival packs for a three a.m. hike in the wilderness. 

“Enough of that.” Hongjoong snaps his fingers in front of Yunho’s face. “Name. Now.” 

“Yunho,” he says helplessly back, finally giving in to the bizarreness of the situation. “Jeong Yunho. I still don’t understand how I’m here, wherever  _ here  _ even is. I was just in a tent talking to some old lady—”

Hongjoong’s eyes flash a distressing shade of white for an instant before returning to their previous brown. “Old lady?”

Yunho nods and leans his weight against the boulder. All of his energy seems to be leaving now that the first spike of adrenaline is making its way out of his system. 

“An old lady reading me some kind of tarot. She told me I had a choice and then she pushed me.” Yunho pokes at his chest in the general vicinity her creepy cold hand had shoved. It still feels oddly chilled if he thinks about it too long—like an itch he can’t quite reach. “And now I’m here.”

“I see.” Hongjoong goes silent for a long moment before sighing like a gale. “You’re one of  _ hers  _ then.”

“What does that mean?” 

“It means,” Hongjoong grins, all straight white teeth and fangs,  _ what the fuck _ , “That  _ you _ , my dear Jeong Yunho, get to play a game.”

Yunho blinks. “Like kai bai bo?”

“I do not know what that is,” the king deadpans and snaps his fingers. Magically, at this point Yunho really shouldn’t be surprised, a strange clock with thirteen numbers appears suspended in midair. “If you want to return to the place from whence you came, you will have to reach my castle at the center of the Labyrinth within seven days.”

Yunho digs a pinky into one ear because there is no way he heard that correctly. “I have to what now?”

“Solve my Labyrinth. If you can get from the entrance to the center and into the tallest spire, a doorway will open to your world to let you through.” Hongjoong’s mouth quirks rakishly to one side. “Or you can choose not to play the game and stay here. Your choice.”

The obsidian doors veritably gleam in the background. Yunho barely manages to swallow down the hysterical laughter bubbling up from his gut. “This has to be some kind of horrible nightmare. I must have fallen over and hit my head and when I finally wake up this is all going to be a bad coma dream.”

“I’m afraid not.” Hongjoong finally hops off the floating rock... _ thingy  _ to pose jauntily with his hands on hips. Where the woman who sent Yunho here was enormously tall, this guy is—

“Wow, you’re really short,” Yunho blurts. He realizes almost immediately that’s not really something you should probably be saying to the dude that can snap clocks into existence or turn a stick into bubbles, holy shit, and slaps his hands over his mouth.

“And  _ you  _ are really rude.” The mullet man—Goblin King, Yunho corrects himself—sniffs, looks away to raise his nose snootily in the air. “I could just kill you, you know. It would be super easy and a lot less hassle than watching you try to solve my maze for a few days.”

“Sorry, sorry, it’s just the lady that pushed me or transported me here or whatever was, like, over two hundred centimeters and I just kind of assumed you would be too?” Yunho rubs his hands together by way of apology.

The Goblin King closes his eyes and holds the bridge of his nose in obvious irritation.

“But, I mean, she was a  _ real  _ giant! I thought she’d be less than one fifty because she was so old, but she stood up and—bam!” Yunho moves his arms in a wide arc, miming the impressive stature of the elderly shaman. “ _ Tall _ .”

“I got it, thank you, Yunho.” The Goblin King claps to get him to stop talking. “Now what will it be, are you going to try and run my Labyrinth or stay out here with the desert and the very hungry gila monsters?”

Good question. If he squints, Yunho imagines he can almost see the faint outline of a twisted castle. Though anything could be anything in this place. He’s still not over the stick turning into a mass of bubbles.

“If I try to solve it,” Yunho starts, and when the Goblin King’s eyes start to get an excited gleam hastily adds, “If!  _ If  _ I try to solve it, what happens if I fail? Like, seven days go by and I am nowhere near the door or whatever.”

Hongjoong smirks and brushes a finger down the center of Yunho’s chest over the chilly mark. “I get to keep you.” Yunho gulps. The King’s eyes go dark and predatory watching the bob of Yunho’s adams apple. “In whatever capacity I choose.”

“Like, slavery?”

“Mmm, in some ways maybe.” Hongjoong comes half a step closer to whisper, “I could make you my personal gardener. The pixies are especially active this time of year.”

“Is that,” Yunho stutters when the King winks. “Is that a euphemism?“

“Anything can be a euphemism in this place, but no. I meant an actual gardener. The roses I had planted out here have been suffering from a pixie infestation for the last three seasons.” Hongjoong breaks the heavily charged atmosphere to smile disarmingly. “I’ll be honest with you since you seem like a nice fellow, I do try to make the course a little more straightforward when it comes to  _ her  _ drop-ins since she’s never quite fair about it.” He claps a friendly hand on Yunho’s shoulder. “Want to give it a go?”

Yunho stares helplessly at the line of perfectly straight teeth glinting at him. “I still don’t understand any of this. I just want to go home.”

“Think of it like this: you don’t run the Labyrinth, you stay out here in the desert. You run the Labyrinth but miss the deadline, you stay with  _ me _ . Either way the only way back to where you come from is to take the challenge.” Hongjoong shrugs and tugs at Yunho’s elbow to start leading him towards the edge of the weird cherub fountain. Oh god, is it pissing yellow? Is that what the water is like here? He hopes not because Yunho definitely does not have the iodine tablets needed to purify that garbage hidden anywhere on his person. “You seem capable enough, I have full faith you would be able to make it.” A gentle snap and the strange clock reappears at Yunho’s side, a seven day countdown slowly materializes on its face.

“So this is just a damned if I do and damned if I don’t scenario.” Yunho droops against the lip of the fountain. “Fine, I’ll solve your puzzle or whatever. Labyrinth.”

“Good.” The King’s grip goes tight against his the curve of Yunho’s elbow before releasing him. “Bit of advice, try not to piss off Jongho. He may be small but he could probably break you in half.” Hongjoong’s eyes go distant. “He’s so very fond of breaking things.”

With that, the King disappears. Literally, he just starts fading slowly into the landscape until all that remains is a small indent of the heels of his boots in the sand and the clock face, still hovering in the air, slowly ticking down the seconds. Yunho hopes the 13th hour mark means the days here work on a 26 hour schedule which would give him a whole fourteen extra hours to solve this thing and go the hell home.

The home where Min Seoyeon rejected his proposal and crushed his ten year plan.

“Fuck, what the  _ fuck _ !” Yunho clutches at his head. They’d been friends for so long, dated for so much longer, and now she suddenly decides a measly two years spent away was too much? He’s not sure how long he sits there wallowing in his existential crisis, but when Yunho looks up the clock has faded from existence and a short figure is meandering its way down the length of the wall spraying something out of a can.

Unsure if he really wants to deal with another crazy person from this insane fever dream, Yunho heaves himself away from the relative comfort of the cement fountain to push on the pair of obsidian doors ostensibly guarding the entrance to the maze. They don’t budge. He kicks at the seam. The doors remain unbothered. Yunho decides to get a running start and slams the middle of the left side with his shoulder.

The figure, a dwarf with sizable boils and ears so sharp they could poke an eye out, starts laughing so hard he has to bend double while Yunho rolls around in pain clutching at his abused shoulder.

“Ay, brotha, that ain’t no way to go about openin’ a door,” the dwarf snickers. He leans down to help Yunho stand and brushes off the sand clinging to Yunho’s shirt. “Whotcha’ doin’ slammim’ into things, eh?”

Ugh, there’s sand all in his pants now. “I, uh, I’m supposed to be trying to solve the Labyrinth but the doors won’t budge.”

“Not if ya gon’ hit ‘em like that they ain’t.” The dwarf—goblin? Is this what goblins look like here?—picks up his can to spray at something fluttering high above the old withered bushes lining the walls. It makes a high pitched noise before dropping like so much dead weight to the ground, strange enough that Yunho tiptoes to get a closer look and immediately feels sick to his stomach. The ‘bug’ is actually what looks to be a human, smaller than the width of Yunho’s palm, clad in makeshift grass clothing and a set of wings. It gives him a glassy-eyed woebegone expression when Yunho leans down to pick it up—

“I wouldn’t do that if’n I was ya, brotha,” the goblin warns. “They got a nasty bite on ‘em after I sprays ‘em. Jus’ leave it there.”

“That’s horrible!” Yunho ignores the advice and scoops the miniscule being into his cupped hands. “How could you do this to—ow fuck!”

“Told ya.” The goblin shrugs. He kicks a foot into a bush and sprays the tiny swarm that appears liberally with the cloying poison from his can.

“This place sucks,” Yunho sulks while his thumb bleeds from two sets of tiny fang marks. “I thought fairies granted wishes?”

“Fairies, maybe. Pixies, no.” The goblin shakes a stick at the base of a rose bush to scare up more vermin. “Pixies jus’ like ta suck the life outta tha flowers ‘n kill tha grass.” He tsks when a pixie clings stubbornly to the backside of the plant he’s trying to clear out. “Fairy might suck tha life outta ya too but at leas’ they ask permission from ya first.”

Yunho nods along. Might be useful information later on his adventure if he meets a mystery creature with wings. Speaking of…

“So how do I get into the Labyrinth if the doors won’t open?”

“Oh, they open, ya jus’ gotta treat ‘em right.” The dwarf squints one-eyed into an opening between two shrubs before giving it an experimental spritz. “Wait, what tha—”

A pixie, larger than any of the ones Yunho has seen so far, comes zooming out of the space hacking into its hands. It flutters behind Yunho to keep a distance between itself and the poison wielding maniac.

“Hey asshole, watch where you point that thing!” It coughs, phlegm landing next to Yunho’s ear making him wince. Ew. “You could have killed me!”

“Ahh, sorry,” the goblin digs a clawed finger into his nose. “Thought ya was a pesty pixie.”

“Do I  _ look  _ like a pixie to you?” The apparently-not-a-pixie shakes a tiny fist in Yunho’s periphery. The goblin only shrugs, indifferent, and picks up his can to wander further down the row of bushes and out of earshot. “Jackass.”

Yunho really hopes this one doesn’t have fangs because it is way close to his jugular for his liking. “Um.”

The tiny person decides to release Yunho’s shirt to flutter into Yunho’s line of sight. He’s about the length of Yunho’s forearm but has actual linen clothes instead of the weird grass and leaf combination of the (evil, demon, bitey piece of sh—) pixie Yunho tried to pick up. Where the pixie had a long tangle of hair, this one has a mop of blond curls. He squints. “What’s your deal?”

“Uh.” 

Jeong Yunho: articulate genius, master of language, should have gone to Yale.

“What’s a human doing out here? I thought you weren’t allowed.” The not-a-pixie zooms a slow circle around Yunho’s head. “Oooo, are you trying to get in there?” He flicks a thumb in the direction of the castle.

“Yeah, actually, but the doors won’t open.”

“Did you knock?” He flutters down just enough to hold a hand out at Yunho’s palm. “I’m San, by the way. I’m a fairy but if you ask for a wish I will not hesitate to bite you.” He smirks wide to show off a finely sharpened set of canines. Why does everything here have to have  _ fangs? _ If he meets a vampire or—or  _ Dracula _ , Yunho is going to give up because this is obviously just hell and there is no escape.

“I’m Jeong Yunho. It’s—ah—nice to meet you?” Yunho delicately takes the proffered hand and shakes it the tiniest amount up and down, afraid of accidentally pulling off San’s arm or dislocating his shoulder if he does it too hard. San rolls his eyes and flies up high enough to bring Yunho’s arm above his head before letting his wings fall flat and dropping like a bird of prey after their morning meal towards the ground. It’s kind of hilarious but Yunho’s not sure if laughing will mean a fang to the arm. “I mostly just kicked at them when they wouldn’t push open.”

“Well there’s your problem right there.” San puts his hands on his hips and starts tugging at Yunho’s shirtsleeve until they’re standing in front of the gleaming obsidian again. “Knock.”

“Are you serious?”

San leans an arm confidently against one side of the double doors, still hovering in midair. “Deadly. Did no one ever teach you how to be polite? You see a door, you knock.” He mimes knocking for emphasis.

“I mean, I guess so.” Yunho stares dubiously at the sucking inky black. He really doesn’t see how knocking on these things is going to make them move when there’s a nasty bruise forming on his shoulder from slamming into it not fifteen minutes ago. Yunho sighs and gives the doors a steady three rasps with his knuckles.

They open.

“There is no way that worked,” Yunho gapes. “No way!”

“Things don’t work the same here as they do in your world, buddy.” San laughs. He’s the first to go flying into the maze or what Yunho can see of it. It mostly just looks like a long walkway on either side.

Left or right? Which way would be the best option if Yunho wanted to solve this thing fast? He went to a corn maze once when he was seven and kept one hand on the right side of the yellowing field to find the exit. It took longer than anyone else in their group, but he was one of the few that didn’t need the teenage volunteers to come rescue them from the third go around on a particular bend. Then again, this place may operate differently and left is actually the side to stick to so—

San decides to make himself comfortable by sitting down on Yunho’s shoulder. “Which way are we going, buddy?”

“I don’t know.” Yunho wobbles on his own inability to make decisions. “They both look the same to me.”

“Do they,” San says cryptically.

“Are they not?” Yunho wilts the edge of the edge of the open doorway. “Which direction would you pick?”

“Depends. Where are you trying to go?” San asks.

“The castle at the center of the Labyrinth. I have seven days.”  _ You will die in seven days _ . God it’s like he’s in a bad knock off Ringu movie.

San grimaces. “In that case, I wouldn’t go either way.”

Yunho groans. “Thanks, you’re very helpful.” 

San says nothing when Yunho finally decides to turn to the right, topsy-turvy weirdness be damned.

“Are you coming along or...what’s happening here?” 

He jumps when, not two steps down the long walk, the doors to the entrance slam closed with a final sounding grind. Well, no going back now.

San pats the top of Yunho’s head while Yunho dodges a giant branch toppled over on the path. Where it came from is anyone’s guess since Yunho hasn’t seen any tree or bush capable of producing it. 

“I figure you could use a friend looking out for you, Mr. Doesn’t-Know-How-to-Knock.”

“Listen,” Yunho whines, nearly trips on a vine creeping in looping swirls along the bottom of the path.

“I’m listening,” San mocks and holds his chin in one tiny palm.

“I didn’t think that would do anything.” Yunho pouts. “Hey, if this is a labyrinth, shouldn’t there be, like, twists and turns or something? No wonder he gives you a week, this thing is  _ endless _ .”

San hums and twirls a lock of Yunho’s hair around one finger. “Dunno, I’ve never been allowed into this part of the Kingdom.”

“Can’t you just fly up and tell me where the first turn is? That would make this go a whole lot faster.”

“If I did that, it would be considered cheating.” San examines his nails. “I’m not about to get dissolved over some pesky boy trying to run this maze.”

“Dissolved?”

San doesn’t answer in favor of miming scrubbing a nail file across one of his fangs. Yunho scowls. 

“Don’t give me that look, here—” San yanks at Yunho’s ear until Yunho turns to the side where a small blue caterpillar is making its way slowly across the brickwork. “Ask him.”

“Him who?”

“ _ Him  _ him!” San points, bizarrely, to the wormlike critter. Yunho finally notices it’s wearing a scarf. Of course it’s wearing a fucking scarf. 

The worm takes notice of them with a cheery sounding, “‘Allo!”

“Oh, um, hello?” Yunho tips forward in a polite bow. “Do you happen to know the way through this labyrinth?”

“Who, me? Naw, I’m jus’ a worm,” he laughs a little self consciously. “Would you like to come inside and meet the missus?” The worm nods its little blue head in the direction of a small opening in the brickwork. “We’ve got warm cups of tea if you’d like.”

San enthusiastically exclaims, “Oh that would be lovely, thank—” until Yunho slaps a hand gently across his mouth.

“Thank you, but no thank you. I’m actually in a hurry to solve this labyrinth but there’s no twists or turns or openings or anything.” Yunho kicks at a small clump of fungus and manfully swallows down the girlish scream when it opens a rheumy looking eye at him. Gross. Yunho hates this place  _ so much _ . “It’s just one long walkway.” 

San slaps at Yunho’s hand until he finally takes mercy on the fairy and removes it. 

“Well, you’re jus’ not looking right. This place is full of openings!” The worm replies exuberantly. “It’s just you ain’t seeing ‘em.”

“Like...where, though?”

“There’s one jus’ across there, right in front of you.”

Right in front of Yunho is a solid brick wall. This worm is on  _ crack _ . “No, there isn’t.”

The worm laughs, a small little ‘oh ho ho’, before replying, “Of course there is! You try walking through it, you’ll see what I mean.”

“Dude, that’s seriously just a wall. I’m not going to walk into it so you can laugh at me.”

“Stop being an asshole, Yunho.” San smacks at his ear. “Just try it, what’s the worst that can happen?”

“I get a concussion,” Yunho replies primly.

The worm titters another laugh at their antics. “Things aren’t always what they seem in this place. You can’t take anything for granted.” Yunho continues to glare at the opposite wall. “Come inside and have a nice cup of tea, yeah?”

“If I walk into this wall and it doesn’t work on Harry Potter rules, I’m suing you.” Yunho takes a deep breath and, holding both palms forward, walks into the brickwork. Amazingly a whole new path opens on either side—much like the walkway behind him but the walls are made of sandstone and there are obvious twists in either direction. “Woah!” He turns to take a step to the left.

“Don’t go that way!” The worm yells at him.

Yunho hesitates and, when San nudges him, leans back to see the worm fretting from his spot. “What was that?”

The worm shakes his head vigorously. “I said, don’t go that way.  _ Never  _ go that way.”

Ah, so left  _ must  _ be the worst direction here. Good to know. “Thank you! This was really helpful!”

The worm mumbles something Yunho can’t quite catch now that he’s in a whole different landscape. Even the sky seems to have cleared enough that Yunho can see the actual castle now. It’s a strange amalgamation of rock piles and pillars, like someone had the  _ idea  _ of a castle in their mind without the ability to actually execute its construction. The tallest spire seems to rise above the clouds, obscured from vision.

San whistles loud. “Kingy-boy has been busy.”

“You know the king?” Yunho takes the first few turns without really thinking about it.

“Sorta,” San holds a hand over his eyes to shade them against the bright glare of the sun. It’s strange, the sun is bright but Yunho doesn’t feel overly hot or sweaty or anything. Must be part of the magic of this place to keep at just the right temperature. “Everyone knows the King, Yunho. ”

“I meant,” Yunho huffs when they come to a dead end and turns back to the way they came to try a different direction. “You just sounded like you  _ knew him  _ knew him, you know? I was curious what he’s like.”

“You have a funny way of talking, you know that?” San kicks his feet to thump gently against Yunho’s clavicle. “King Hongjoong is—” the fairy trails off. “Well he’s not  _ nice _ , but he’s not a bad King either. I think he’s gone a little stir crazy from being held hostage in that tower with all the goblins though. Anyone would, they  _ reek _ .”

The next bend ends in yet another dead end. It’s only when Yunho is a handful of twists ahead that he pauses to ask,“Wait, held hostage?” 

Surely he must have misheard. You can’t hold a King hostage.

“Oh no—” San waves his hands frantically. “Forget I said that!”

“Nope.” Yunho stops walking. “How can a king be held hostage in his own kingdom, explain.”

San scowls, crosses his arms. “Alright, look, our world works differently from yours right?” The fairy flies up to land on tiptoe atop one of the sandy posts. “A Kingdom needs a King. That’s how it works, that’s how it has  _ always  _ worked. The Labyrinth wouldn’t exist if we didn’t have one, so we have King Hongjoong. He can’t leave or else this whole world collapses with him.”

Yunho can see where that makes sense. Sort of. “What happens when he dies?”

San balances on his other foot now, spins in a half-circle like a ballerina. “We’re sent a new King before that happens.”

“Huh.” Before his eyes, the sandstone walls phase from one position to another. Where there had been a twisting pathway to his right now only holds a section of two walls joined together in another dead stop. “Oh what the fuck!”

“Language,” San says mildly.

“The walls are changing! That’s not fair!” Yunho runs up to smack angrily at the new barricade. “How am I supposed to solve this labyrinth if the walls won’t even stay in one place?”

“There’s probably a trick to it.” San hops down to kick at the flagstones beneath their feet. “Like the worm said, you can’t take anything for granted in this place.”

“This place is a nightmare,” Yunho mutters moodily but drops down to his haunches to join San in poking around at the ground. He’s not sure what they’re looking for, but San seems fairly competent so Yunho is going to follow his lead. They spend a fair amount of time going over the cracks between stones until San crows out an ‘ah-hah!’ in victory.

“Yunho, help me move this stone,” San grins up at him. Yunho shrugs and digs a finger into one of the crevices off to one side until it pops free to reveal a tiny man, like San but without the wings, crouched just below the surface on the step of a miniature staircase. The fairy grabs hold of his shirt before the guy can scamper away. “Hi there, I need some answers.”

“Get yer paws offa me ye damn arsehole,” the man struggles against San’s grip. “Feckin’ fairy germs!”

“That’s not very nice,” Yunho frowns at the pair of them.

San nods along, smug. “Yeah, we just wanted to ask you a question.”

The man stops struggling, finally giving up when there seems to be no getting out of San’s stranglehold on his clothing. “Wot? Wot, wot, wot? Ye gon’ ask me how ta get ta the castle?” He spits at the ground between San’s feet. Yunho can see the fairy’s fists tightening. “I ain’t got nothin’ ta say ta the likes o’ ye so feck off.”

“In that case—” San flicks his wings until himself and the tiny man are hovering just above Yunho’s head. “Since you don’t want to answer a simple, itsy bitsy little question, how about I just drop you from here and I go find out what’s at the bottom of that staircase? Mmm? Sound good to you?”

“No,” the man wheezes, feet kicking uselessly in the air, “I’ll tell ye wot ye want, jus’ put me down.”

“I think we’re good up here,” San smiles unkindly, all teeth. “What’s the trick to get away from the shifting walls? We’re on a time crunch.”

The man doesn’t answer for a long moment until San flits just the tiniest bit higher and moves his arms like he’s about to drop him totally. “Wait! Wait, I’ll tell ye,” he gulps. “Ye gotta—ye gotta keep a hand on it, see? Can’t shift if ye touching it, right. Can’t move.”

“Hear that Yunho? You just need to keep a hand on it!” San yells down to him. His grin is still a terrifying rictus and it’s making Yunho nervous.

“That’s great, San! Now put the nice man down.” 

“Nice man, nice man...” 

San lets one hand go to tap the edge of his mouth while the tiny man screams and lunges desperately at the fairy’s shirt. “Do you see a nice man anywhere? All I see is an imp that thinks I have  _ germs _ .”

“Ye don’t ‘ave germs! I was jus’ teasing ye!”

“Oh a  _ tease _ , haha, silly me!” San lets him go in an instant but manages to snatch him away from a sudden splat against the hard rock floor at the last moment. “How’s that for a tease, you racist piece of garbage?” San finally releases the imp for the last inch or so to revel in the  _ oof _ he lets out at the impact. “Get out of here.”

The imp shakes his fist in San’s direction along with a litany of foul sounding curse words as he descends back down into his hovel.

Yunho watches as San claps his hands together like he’s brushing off a hard day’s work. “You, uh, you okay there, San? That was a bit much.”

“I spent most of my life dealing with imps like him with a grudge against me just because I have wings and they don’t.” San flies up to settle against Yunho’s shoulder again. “It was nice to finally have the upper hand for once. Now, let’s go!”

Yunho places one hand on the wall to his right and off they go. The imp must not have been lying because it seems like, after a few false starts and several winding paths to more dead ends, the two of them are making decent progress towards the center. It’s just starting to get dark when a monstrous noise thunders from somewhere overhead.

“What was that?” Yunho whispers.

San actually perks up. “Oh, I think—” 

The noise thunders again, this time closer. 

“It is!”

Yunho ducks down when a giant shadow passes over them. Above, just shy of the cloudline, is a  _ motherfucking dragon  _ flying at a leisurely pace. San flies up to wave his arms enthusiastically on the edge of one wall. 

“San, get down before it sees you!”

“I want him to see me,” San yells back. “That’s my friend.” He cups his hands around his mouth to better project the sound of his yelling, “Hey! Mingi! Mingi, down here!”

“San!” Yunho whispers harshly, paling when the dragon takes notice of San’s yelling and roars, turning to speed down at them in a swan dive. God, he’s  _ actually  _ going to die here. Maybe his ghost will be cursed to wander the Labyrinth once the dragon gets finished eating him and using his bones for toothpicks.

Just before the dragon can land on top of them or turn the current section of maze into so much rubble, it disappears into a plume of smoke with an audible  _ poof _ noise and churning cloud of purplish-red smoke. Yunho coughs against the acrid smoke clouding his vision and fans a hand in front of his face. When it clears, a young man much taller than Yunho in a red robe stands in the dragon’s place.

A young man with scales, horns, and a tail anyway.

“San, my friend! It’s been so long since I’ve seen you!” The dragon boy—Mingi, was it?—opens his arms wide to scoop San into a bone crushing hug. “Too long, too long.”

San laughs like he’s not about to be eaten so Yunho thinks maybe it’s fine, this is fine. There’s a dragon man standing in front of him and everything is totally fine. Yunho checks his pulse just to be safe that he’s not on the verge of having a stroke. 

“It has been too long, Mingi!” San finally wiggles free. “You’re getting better at transforming too. Maybe try it without the tail next time, yeah?”

“Did the tail stay again?” Mingi looks over his shoulder and twirls in place until the appendage smacks into a wall, effectively punching a hole through to the other side. “Oops.” 

“It’s fine, better luck on the next one.” San tugs Yunho over to where Mingi is clutching at his scaled tail pouting. “This is my new friend Yunho. Yunho, Mingi. Mingi, Yunho. We’re going to the castle.”

Mingi finally stops pouting long enough to embrace Yunho hard enough to make him wheeze. “Hello, San’s friend Yunho!” He sniffs loudly in Yunho’s ear. “You smell human.”

“He  _ is  _ human,” San tells him excitedly. “King Hongjoong is making him run the maze. You should come with us!”

“Can’t breathe!” Yunho taps at Mingi’s arms in an attempt to make him stop crushing his lungs into a paste.

“Oh! My apologies.” Mingi unwraps his arms immediately and starts fretting when Yunho coughs violently into his knees. “Are you okay? I forget how squishy humans can be when it comes to my strength.”

“I’m fine, I’m okay,” Yunho gasps. “I think I should be thanking you anyway.” He points to the hole in the wall. “Looks like you opened up the next part of the Labyrinth.”

Beyond the rubble caused by Mingi’s tail is a thicket of greenery previously hidden by the towering sandstone. There are trees blanking out the sun and a muggy air emanating from the gap. San pokes his head through to give the place a cursory once over.

“Seems promising,” he whistles.

“Better than rubbing my hand raw on these rocks.” Yunho moans and shakes his hand to get the feeling back. The grit of sandstone had worn his hand numb after hour three.

Mingi holds up a hand and yells, “I want to come too!”

San winces. “Volume, Mingi. You’re not in your true form, tone it down.”

“Oh, right.” Mingi blinks. His voice is still loud when he says. “How’s this?”

Yunho shrugs at San’s put upon expression. He claps a hand against Mingi’s shoulder. “I think you’re doing just fine. We need to get going though, it’s getting dark.”

“Thank you, friend Yunho!” Mingi says exuberantly. “Do not be afraid of the dark, I have many talents with fire.”

“I bet,” Yunho laughs and leads the way through the impromptu doorway. “We’re probably going to need it when we make camp.” 

San decides to sit on Mingi’s shoulder this time to better chatter away in his ear. It’s actually a nice change of pace. Yunho’s own shoulder was starting to ache from carrying his weight this whole time and he rolls it to get the stiffness out of the joint. For someone that can fly, San sure only uses it when there isn’t a convenient transport to lounge on.

If Yunho thought this almost jungle would be easier to navigate, he’s sorely mistaken. The sandstone maze at least had the clear path to choose from where this is mostly just slogging through untamed wilderness and getting tangled in the brambles. Most unnerving of all, the flowers appear to be somewhat sentient.

“If we’re in Alice in Wonderland world, I want out,” Yunho gripes after the third patch of irises make fawning noises in the direction of his shoelaces. “I’m going to break the caterpillar's hookah before he can turn into an angry butterfly.” 

Mingi lets out a confused sound. San quiets him with a shushing motion. “Just weird human things, Mingi. Don’t worry about it.”

“Oh! Friend Yunho!” Mingi stomps on a patch of daffodils that whimper pathetically underfoot. “A clearing up ahead. Should we stop there for the night?”

“Probably for the best.” Yunho feels a bit green when Mingi runs forward through a field of screaming flora. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers in passing at the trampled clover.

Yunho and San gather firewood for Mingi to cough a tiny bout of flame on and they huddle around it for warmth. Between one blink and the next, Yunho falls asleep.

He startles awake sometime later to the sound of glass shattering. “Whuzzat? What?”

“Hello, Jeong Yunho.”

It sounds like the King, but when Yunho stands to look around for the source no one but San and Mingi, both softly snoring against a tree, are around. “Hello?”

The sound of laughter. “Up here.” 

Yunho looks up. Standing on a branch above him is Hongjoong, leaning a hand against the trunk while the other sits against the curve of his hip. He smiles. The firelight makes his face seem more ethereal than the first time Yunho had seen him and a weird tingling shoots through his chest. 

“I see you’ve made some friends.” 

“They’ve kind of just decided to tag along with me.” Yunho frowns, rubbing at the sensation in his chest, right over the chilled skin where the shaman shoved him. Weird. “What are you doing here?”

Hongjoong shrugs. “I thought it might be interesting to see how you’re enjoying my Labyrinth.” He lets go of the trunk to spin upside down on the branch, still standing upright. “You seem to be making decent headway. Good for you.”

Yunho gapes at him. “How are you doing that?”

“Doing what?” The King pretends to balance walk along the underside of the branch.

“Standing upside down without everything falling out of your pockets.” Actually his whole outfit and his hair seems to be defying gravity too. Yunho watches in fascination as a breeze shifts against Hongjoong’s hair without it flopping down.

“Well, for one, I don’t have pockets,” Hongjoong giggles.  _ Giggles _ . The big scary Goblin King that threatened to kill him not that long ago is  _ giggling _ . What even— “And for two, magic.”

“Touché.” 

Hongjoong finally drops down to the ground to stand upright like a normal person. “I’ll ask you again, how are you enjoying my Labyrinth?”

He hates it. Yunho wants to go home and never think about this place again. “It’s...been fun.”

“Fun?” Hongjoong’s cocks both eyebrows at him.

“For a certain definition of fun,” Yunho winces. “Uh, it’s a little easy?”

The King sighs, a gale force that shifts the wind in a different direction, and his eyes flash that strange white again. He blinks once and the color of his pupils is back to the normal brown. “I do wish you had not said that.”

“Said what?” 

“That my Labyrinth is easy,” Hongjoong flinches. He strides forward to whisper low into Yunho’s ear, “Time to wake up now,” and flicks a gloved finger against the middle of Yunho’s forehead.

Yunho blinks awake to the tinny sound of screaming.

The forest is on fire.

  
  



	3. Chapter 3

**IN WHICH YUNHO AND FRIENDS TRIP AND HAVE A NICE FALL**

Heart in his throat, Yunho runs as fast as his legs can carry him through the blaze behind Mingi, who can at least knock over any limbs in their way to clear a path, and San, who’s clinging desperately to the collar of Mingi’s robe with his legs dangling hilariously in the wind.

“Mingi, why don’t you transform and fly us out of here?” San yells over the roar of the flames and the withering screams of the flowers around them.

Mingi, breathless, replies, “There’s too many trees! I need room to spread out and time we don’t have to get the balance right!”

A clump of daffodils reach out to grab at Yunho’s jeans as the flames lick at the base of their stems, he has to tell himself to keep running instead of trying to help. “Can’t you do something about the fire?” Yunho shields his eyes from embers that drop from above them. “You’re a fire dragon!”

“That’s not how it works! That’s not how any of this works!” Mingi yells back and almost trips over a cluster of vine like protrusions.

Yunho curses. When he looks back, the flames seem to be following them almost in a straight line, like it’s a sentient force hellbent on roasting the three of them alive. If he squints against the glare and heat of the fire Yunho can almost make out chunks of unmolested,  _ unburnt  _ jungle on either side of their path. Experimentally, he shifts to run a diagonal from Mingi’s broken trail and watches as the wall of fire shifts with him.

Well.

That’s...interesting.

He rejoins San and Mingi after a few meters of zigzagging his way back to where Mingi is slamming through the foliage. 

“So, uh, fun new fact,” Yunho pants while he pumps his arms in tandem with his legs, narrowly avoiding another clump of blooms as they spontaneously catch flame. Shit it’s a good thing he’s fresh from the military, all that training is paying off. “The fire is following me.”

“It’s following all of us, idiot,” San coughs violently into Mingi’s coat. Yunho winces at the horrific hacking sound. He can only imagine the damage the smoke is doing to the fairy’s tiny lungs. Yunho’s own feel like they’re blistering in his chest. “Mingi can you see an exit anywhere?”

Mingi shakes his head. “I know one way to find out, Friend San!” He takes a heaving gulp of air.

Yunho has only a second to get out “Wait, no, don’t—” before Mingi belches a line of fire directly into the trees ahead. Amazingly, instead of creating a blazing barrier in front of them, Mingi seems to have punched a hole from where they’re running to the edge of a familiar sandstone ledge several meters ahead. The foliage is singed and burnt in a perfect circle, but it’s not catching like the wall of heat bearing down on their backs.

Yunho isn’t a scientist but he’s pretty sure that’s not how any of this should work. He’s ready to go home where the laws of physics aren’t in constant flux.

“Not too far now, Friend Yunho!” Mingi calls behind him. “I can see the stone walls again!”

“That’s great, Mingi,” Yunho squints against the billowing smoke. His legs are screaming at him, his lungs burn, the heat makes it feel like his skin is slowly boiling away from his bones. “Think you can break through?”

“No need, the path is opening as we speak!” Mingi yells back excitedly.

Mingi is right, when Yunho looks up the wall is slowly fading into a strange approximation of a stone trellis with inviting banisters slowly oozing forward into the forest path. Maybe that’s what the Goblin King meant when he said he tries to make it easy on ‘her’ visitors, creating obvious entrances that Yunho would otherwise miss. Then again, it could just be another trap and they’re all going to go running smack into an invisible wall so the fire has an easier time of roasting the three of them alive.

He’s pleased to find the opening to the stone path is  _ actually _ an opening. Though as soon as Yunho finishes crossing the threshold behind Mingi it fades immediately into impenetrable rock and an entire section of the wall goes shooting high enough to block out the jungle—and the semi-sentient fire—from vision.

Yunho drops down on all fours to gasp desperately for clean air and to catch his breath like a man pulled from water just before drowning. Mingi seems to be doing fine but San drops from clinging to the dragon’s robes to lean his body against a wall and retches blackened spit.

Yunho watches Mingi crouch down near San’s height wringing his hands together. “Friend San, are you alright?”

San coughs violently against the pebbled surface. He waves a hand to make Mingi back up. “I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m just—” San gets cut off by another bout of blackened vomiting. “Ugh.”

Yunho decides to give in and flops on his back to starfish his limbs for maximum cooldown. The sun is barely peeking over the horizon. If he concentrates, Yunho can barely make out the sound of crackling wood and tiny agonized screams of the weirdly alive grass. Thankfully the sulfurous smell of the smoke is somehow being blocked by the gigantic wall behind them and his next inhale in nothing but clean air.

San heaves one last time before fluttering over to spread out next to Yunho’s ear. “What in the seven hells happened back there?”

Mingi sits down to pull Yunho’s head into his lap and creates a makeshift pillow for San with the edge of his robe. “I honestly do not know, Friend San.”

San groans. “Did you knock over the campfire or something?”

“How should I know?” Mingi pouts defensively. “I was asleep when it started, same as you.”

Yunho stays silent. Partly because he’s not sure if the weird dream of Hongjoong had anything to do with the fire and partly because Mingi is rubbing slow circles into his temples. It’s really nice even if his fingers have some wicked looking claws that catch on the stubble of his sad military required shaved head and scrapes awkwardly against the grain on every third rotation. Fire dragon or not, Yunho decides Mingi is good people and is seriously considering naming a child after him and his awesome, relaxing hands.

“Hey, Yunho?” San pokes him lightly in the neck. “How are you holding up?”

Yunho hums, eyes closed. “Burnt.”

Mingi snorts a laugh while San scoffs and kicks a foot hard into Yunho’s shoulder. “I meant, you don’t seem to be panicking or anything. I wanted to make sure you’re not about to crack and go insane on us.”

“That’s very true.” Mingi removes his fingers from Yunho’s temples and Yunho swallows down the urge to beg for him to continue. Rest, relaxation, come back! “You seem to be taking all of this pretty well for a human.”

“Yeah, it’s weird.” Yunho scrubs a hand down the center of his chest. “I was terrified before I started but now it all just feels very—” he waves a hand vaguely in the air, “Blah.”

Yunho can just make out Mingi’s legs tensing almost imperceptibly beneath his head. “Blah?”

“Yeah, I don’t really feel much of anything.” Yunho finally opens his eyes to see Mingi frowning down at him and brushes at the crisped edge of his own t-shirt. “Except burnt.”

San makes a considering noise beside him. “You were pretty emotional when we spoke to the worm at the beginning.”

“Oh.” Yunho purses his lips in thought. “I guess I was. Maybe I’m just desensitized to crazy?”

“After one day?” San boggles at him.

Yunho shrugs. “I’m in a weird alternate dimension with a bunch of fantasy creatures, anything’s possible.”

He’s not sure how much time passes as they lie there on the stone floor, but when the sun is directly overhead and Yunho has to shield his eyes from the glare, he decides enough is enough. He stands and brushes the sand from his knees and claps his hands together to get rid of any residual dirt. 

“Alright, let’s get going. The castle looks like it’s ahead of us again.”

They set off once more, Yunho making sure to have a palm touching the side of the maze at all times. San and Mingi are both quiet this time around. There’s no constant murmur of friendly banter or the sound of Mingi laughing at something San mimes out or anything really, except for the low sound of Mingi’s tail dragging against the floor. It’s eerie.

For lack of anything else to do, Yunho decides to start asking questions. “So how come neither of you know the way around this place if you live here?”

“We do not live in the actual maze, Friend Yunho,” Mingi responds, though his tone is still somewhat subdued. “There are villages around this Kingdom outside of the walls.”

San flits over to sit against Yunho’s shoulder again. “Yeah, I’ve never actually been in the Labyrinth until now.”

“Huh.” Yunho stares resolutely ahead. “You guys have never tried to solve it just to see what would happen?”

Mingi shakes his head. 

San clicks his tongue. “Why would we? The Labyrinth isn’t for us.”

That’s strange. Why live next to a maze and not try to solve it every now and again? It makes no sense. “What do you mean it isn’t for you?”

“You’re so nosy.” San pokes a finger into Yunho’s nose. “Are all humans this nosy?”

Yunho gently bats his hand away. “I was just curious, that’s all. No harm in asking.” He winces when his numb fingers glance over a section of particularly rough stonework. “I thought it might help me understand this place better is all.”

Mingi rubs a hand self consciously against one of his horns. “If it helps you any, I still don’t know all there is to this place and I’ve been around longer than Friend San.” Yunho watches as the line of Mingi’s shoulders droop like a scolded puppy. “As far as I can tell, I’m the only dragon around though.”

“That sucks.” Yunho pats his back in sympathy. Mingi leans into the touch and Yunho has to wonder if he’s not also starved for physical affection. Maybe they’ll run into someone that can give the dragon a bro hug and not have their spine crushed.

The twisting path they’ve chosen culminates in a dead end with two doors populated by a pair of strange looking shields with legs. Mingi shifts just the slightest bit behind Yunho while San goes rigid on Yunho’s shoulder. 

“Shield goblins,” San whispers as quietly as he can.

“Is that bad?” Yunho whispers back.

San shrugs against him. “Hard to say without speaking to them, but be careful. They’re tricky.”

The shields start snickering. Yunho startles so hard that he accidentally lets go of the side of the maze and hears the unmistakable grind of moving stone. He turns around just in time to watch the route behind them slam closed leaving the group blocked in on all sides, the only option of continuing being the two doors guarded by the pair of goblins. Mingi makes a low whining noise and grips hard at Yunho’s elbow.

Well, nothing for it now. Yunho clears his throat. “Hello?”

He is wholly unprepared for the four faces that come popping out either end of each shield with various stages of excitement and boredom etched on their faces. They look like what would happen if you took a fox and mixed it liberally with whatever Steven Spielberg was smoking when he created E.T.

“‘Allo!”

“Good morrow!”

“No one says ‘good morrow’ anymore, you ponce.”

“Don’t call me a ponce, you cow.”

“You’re the cow!”

“Both of you shut up so the lad can speak.”

“My, so lively today.”

Yunho feels a migraine coming on. “Can you speak one at a time please? I'm on a pretty tight schedule to get to the castle.”

The most mild mannered head of the bunch titters out, “The only way forward is to try one of these doors.”

Another pops up. “One of them leads to the castle at the center of the Labyrinth and the other one leads to—” the remaining heads chime in with an ominous ‘ba-ba-ba-bum’—“Certain Death.”

San starts snickering at the over exaggerated ‘ooo’s that chorus around the group. “Please, that’s so dramatic. It probably just leads back to the entrance.”

“Which one is which?” Mingi asks curiously, still clinging to Yunho’s arm like a scared toddler.

“Well I wouldn’t know.” The bottom left goblin sniffs. “They’s the ones who can tell you,” he says and shifts his snout to point at the goblins at the top of either shield.

“Then I’ll ask them,” Yunho says. The two heads glance nervously at each other. “Which door leads to the castle?”

“No! You can’t ask us!” The left flusters. “You can only ask one of us.”

“Yeah, it’s in the rules,” The right says matter of fact. “I should warn you that one of us always tells the truth and one of us a~lways lies.” He sniffs and cocks his head to the other goblin. “ _ He _ always lies.”

“I do not, I tell the truth!”

“Oh, what a lie!”

The bottom goblins hide their heads back behind their shields to laugh uproariously at the two bickering back and forth.

“Okay, okay, cut it out!” Yunho stomps a foot at them. “San, any ideas?”

“Don’t look at me, I’m terrible at riddles.” The fairy floats down to peer up underneath one of the shields. The fairy screeches when a bottom head pokes out and clacks his teeth together just shy of his nose.

“One only lies and one only tells the truth,” Mingi mumbles under his breath. “That means one yes or no question could solve this right?”

“I guess.” Yunho sighs. He’s never been good at brain teasers either, this is going to be a  _ disaster _ . “Alright,  _ you _ ,” he points to the rightmost goblin. “Yes or no, would he tell me this door leads to the castle?”

“Uhhhh—” The goblin shifts his whiskers back and forth in consideration for a few moments before he ducks down to confer with his counterpart. He pops back up with a confused sounding, “Yes?”

Yunho stares and glances back at Mingi who only shifts his shoulders up as if to say ‘I don’t know either’. “Then, the other door leads to the castle and this door leads to certain death.”

“Wha—” the goblin gapes. “How do you know? He could be telling the truth.”

“But then he wouldn’t be. So if he said yes, then the answer would be no.”

“ _ I  _ could be telling the truth!”

Good grief, Yunho is definitely going to get a migraine any second now. His brain was  _ not _ cut out for this line of questioning. “Then  _ he  _ would be lying so the answer would still be no, which can only mean this door  _ has _ to lead to certain death and the other one leads to the castle.”

The goblin in front of the other door clicks his nails against the raised emblem of his shield. “Waitaminute, ‘s that right?”

“I don’t know,” the one in front of Yunho responds laughing. “I’ve never understood it.”

“Either way I’m choosing that door so move aside.” The goblins do as he asks while their bottom compatriots continue to laugh behind their barrier. Mingi goes with him when they pass through the creaking doorway and Yunho breathes a sigh of relief at the straightforward view of another misty junglescape. “Hey, I was right! Maybe I’m getting smarter. That was easy!”

Yunho gets to feel smug about it for a split second before the ground opens up to swallow himself and Mingi whole, San yelling for them at the top of the trapdoor before it closes and blocks the fairy from sight.

Mingi is the first to hit the ground in the pitch black cavern, Yunho following not long after with a groaning  _ oof _ as the wind is knocked from his lungs. The dragon scrapes around in the dark while Yunho rolls side to side gasping for his breath to come back. 

“Friend Yunho, I have found something, shield your eyes.”

Between one stilted inhale and the next, Mingi burps fire onto a large chunk of what almost looks like driftwood to turn it into a torch. 

Yunho coughs. “Where are we?”

“Certain Death by the looks of it.” Mingi’s bottom lip wobbles. He must be getting better control of the volume of his voice because it comes out more hushed than Yunho is used to. The dragon stands tall enough that his horns nearly scrape the ceiling of their dark prison. “I’ve only heard of this place once before, Friend Yunho. An oubliette.”

“You speak french?”

“What?”

“Nothing, nevermind.” Yunho manages to get himself upright with Mingi’s help. Nothing feels broken but his back is  _ definitely  _ bruised. Yunho has never been more aware of the ache of his tailbone in his  _ life _ . Well, except for that one time before he met Seoyeon when a nice gentleman with pretty eyes and soft hands took him home from some seedy club his friends had talked him into visiting.

The cavern they’re in actually opens up on several sides into equally pitch black entrances. “Think one of those will lead us out of here?”

“Worth a try.” Mingi hooks a scaled arm around Yunho’s own. “Let’s not get separated, Friend Yunho.”

Yunho pats Mingi’s elbow. “Not like there’s many ways to go but okay. You pick this time, I’m done trying to make decisions for a little while.”

Mingi makes an agreeing noise and they set off down the nearest tunnel. That one ends at a mystifying doorway that turned out to be some form of storage closet full of cleaning supplies and coffee cups. The second tunnel branches in two different directions but Mingi is unwilling to split up so they try the left one first. It ends in a mound of what looks like a crumbled statue of one of those heads from Easter Island—Yunho can just make out a section that was definitely a curved mouth.

The right side, when they find it again, goes further than any of the other tunnels they’ve tried and it finally feels like the two of them are on the path forward again.

“Mingi, do you know anything about the king?”

“His Majesty?” Mingi ducks away from a hanging stalactite. “What about him?”

Yunho kicks at a pebble in their way. “I don’t know, what’s he really like when he’s not making people run the maze?”

The dragon stays silent for a long time. Yunho thinks he’s going to ignore the question entirely when he finally says, “King Hongjoong hasn’t been here very long so it’s hard for me to say.” Mingi’s tail accidentally smashes through an outcropping making them both jump. “Our old King was...not good. He gave people only one day to complete the Labyrinth. Stole a lot of babes from their cradles.” Mingi gives Yunho a tense side eye. “Created the goblins.”

“So was he Hongjoong’s dad?”

“No.” The tunnel forks off again and they waver in the cramped space before Mingi chooses the left again. “Kings work differently here, Friend Yunho.”

“But he said he was the one and only heir to the goblin kingdom or whatever.” Yunho should honestly probably stop trying to make sense of how this bizarre world works except the curiosity is eating him alive. “That implies he was the child of someone here.”

“Not—not  _ quite _ .” Mingi bumps one of his horns against the ceiling and hisses something that sounds fairly obscene. Yunho decides to give him a break and holds the torch, it at least gives Mingi use of both hands to rub the tender spot. “I’m not good at explaining things, Friend San would be the person to ask, I think, or Friend Wooyoung. Unfortunately, he’s been lost to us for almost an age.”

Yunho is just about to ask who Wooyoung is when the sound of something being smashed reverberates from up ahead. “Did you hear that?”

Mingi nods, wide eyed, and they make their way carefully down the tunnel, careful to peek their heads around in caution at every sharp turn just in case of something bad potentially coming for them. The noise is a steady  _ thump-thump-crash _ interrupted occasionally by a deep grunt the closer they get to the sound. Up ahead, Yunho can just make out the low level glow of what appears to be a lamp at the foot of some hulking figure smashing rocks against a stone face. From what Yunho can see of its back, the possible goblin is almost his height and bulky—kind of like a stout, furry version of the Hulk complete with ripped trousers but significantly less green. Whoever it is takes no notice of them or their torch.

Mingi cautiously reaches forward to tap its shoulder. “Excuse me?” The being keeps smacking a boulder into the face of a statue similar to the crumbled remains they’d found earlier. Yunho shrugs helplessly when Mingi glances back at him. “Excuse me!”

The possibly-a-goblin huffs, obviously exasperated, and finally sets the boulder down to face them. “What?” He asks them gruffly. 

Whatever creature he is has tiny horns protruding from just above his forehead and a large underbite complete with blunted canines. He reminds Yunho of some of the orcs from WoW, which is a trip and a half, because he also just looks like a normal dude that’s somehow twisted up with fantasy creature DNA. Come to think of it, San and Mingi both have that in common.

_ Curiouser and curiouser cried Alice.  _ Yunho shakes the thought. Mingi is too busy cowering behind him so Yunho steps in to say, “We’re trying to find the way out of here. Do you know how to get back to the Labyrinth?”

The creature stares at them. “Why?”

“Friend Yunho has to complete the maze within a time limit or else he’s stuck here,” Mingi offers. He cowers back again when the creature scowls back at him.

“You a runner?” The question seems directed at him so Yunho nods. “Okay.” 

The creature picks up his lantern and muscles his way between them back in the direction they’ve already come. He stops when Mingi and Yunho don’t immediately follow. “Do you want out or not?”

“Coming, coming!” Mingi yelps and takes off after him. “I see we both have horns. What is your name, Friend?”

“Jongho,” the creature grunts.

“Friend Jongho!” Mingi crows, back to his overly boisterous self. Good, the quiet timbre of his voice was starting to really give Yunho the creeps. “I’m a fire dragon, what are you? You look like a goblin but goblins don’t have horns.”

Mingi babbles out questions to which Jongho either doesn’t answer or gives short, quiet replies. They turn several corners until stopping at the broom closet again. Why, Yunho isn’t sure, but Jongho seems confident enough so he keeps his mouth shut. The newest addition to the group pulls out a doorknob and attaches it to the opposite side, twists, and opens the door to reveal a new and much brighter pathway.

“Oh what the hell, that’s not fair!” Yunho whines. “How am I supposed to solve this thing if this place doesn’t play by the rules?”

“It does play by the rules,” Jongho tells him calmly, leading the way down a cramped hallway lit by glowing fungi. “Just not the ones you’re used to I imagine.”

“No.” Yunho pouts and crouches down when the ceiling drops several feet. Mingi struggles to get his horns in the proper position so Yunho stoops to help guide him until the cavern widens again.

The next corner is actually one of the stone faces Jongho was crushing earlier except this one is still pristine, if a little dusty. Yunho watches, horrified, as the mouth actually opens to bellow, “Beware!”

“Shut up,” Jongho grouses back and continues his stomping path forward.

Mingi attaches himself to Jongho’s arm not holding the lantern when another face gives a sinister, “You’re going the wrong way!”

“No one listens to you guys, you know that right?” Jongho flicks his lantern so it spits embers in one’s mouth. It coughs a cloud of dirt into Yunho’s face. Asshole.

“Beware for the—”

“Oh be quiet!” Jongho stops to glare at the latest speaking monument.

“Aw, please!” The face has no way to actually show emotion but his voice comes out pleading all the same. “I haven’t gotten to say it in  _ such _ a long time.”

“Fine,” Jongho relents. “But don’t expect any big reaction.”

“No, no, no, of course not.” The rock clears its throat. Yunho tries not to think about how a stone utilizes vocal chords and fails miserably. Are they more stone? Does it have an esophagus? Can it  _ swallow _ ? Is there a whole network of stone digestive tract? He has so many questions. “Beware for the path you will take will lead you to certain destruction!” It lets out a bashful ‘ahem’, “Thank you.”

“Whatever.” Jongho motions them forward and the three continue around another bend. 

There’s a familiar muffled sound like shattering glass when, out of nowhere, the King pops up from beyond a stone pillar to hug Jongho around the neck, smiling wide open and sweet.

“Jongho-yah! Just the one I wanted to see, have you—” He stops when he notices Yunho and Mingi staring open mouthed at him on either side. “Ah.”

Jongho glances back at them before turning around to shrug. “They wanted to be shown a way out.”

“I—yes, I imagine so.” 

Hongjoong goes visibly pale and very stiff the longer Yunho watches him. Maintaining eye contact, Yunho clutches at the tingling space in the middle of his chest. Why did seeing the King do this? Hongjoong’s eyes seem to bleed white at the edges when he finally starts speaking again, “Please, continue to escort them to the exit.” 

With a barely concealed wince, the King fades back into non existence. 

Jongho glances impassively at the space Hongjoong used to occupy a moment before moving forward. “You heard the King.”

“That was strange.” Mingi follows. “You know the King, Friend Jongho?”

Jongho makes a noncommittal noise continuing down the path.

Yunho is too busy clutching at the steady throb in his chest to notice until Mingi turns back to call him forward. “Friend Yunho?”

“Huh, I—what?”

Mingi gives him a sly grin. “Distracted?”

“I’m...I don’t know what you’re implying and I don’t like it.” Yunho stomps after them. “Just get me out of here so I can go home.”

They’ve just ducked into a new tunnel when a strange susurration echoes from behind them. Jongho stops, shushing Mingi and Yunho when they stumble into him. It almost sounds like a whisper of feathers flicking together until the sound gets close enough for Yunho to just make out the scrape of metal against metal. 

Jongho lets out a wounded high-pitched whine and yells, “Run!”

Following Jongho’s much more knowledgeable lead, they take off at a sprint down the tunnel. Mingi’s tail whips through the dust and dirt behind them, smashes through some of the rock on either side of the tunnel leaving minor craters in his wake.

“Friend Jongho, why are we running?”

“I can’t believe him,” Jongho gasps. “It’s the Cleaners! He summoned the Cleaners! Yunho, what in the burning seven hells did you do to piss him off?”

“Me?” Yunho cries. “I didn’t do anything! He’s the one making me run this stupid fucking maze!”

“What are the Cleaners exactly?” Mingi questions through his panting as they duck passed several openings.

“Look behind you and you’ll see, just keep running!”

Yunho and Mingi both look over their shoulders. There, just at the edge of the barely lit cavern, is a huge drill spanning the entire width of the tunnel covered in razor sharp blades grinding forward at incredible speed. 

Yunho’s blood runs cold. “Holy fuck!”

“Exactly!” Jongho barrels forward. “To the left!”

Yunho has to grab Mingi’s sleeve, abandoning his torch in the process, when the idiot dragon goes to spin right. “Your other left, stupid!”

“I knew that,” Mingi wails frantically.

They come to a dead end. Jongho pushes against the walls on either side until one section of stone actually seems to bend beneath his grip. “Here, help me push this!”

Mingi rushes to comply, slamming his considerable strength against the stonework until it crumbles inward to reveal a rickety looking wooden ladder. The three of them barely manage to squeeze together into the alcove just in time to watch the drill chew its way through the rock blocking off the end of the tunnel and continue on.

The ladder digs into his spine and Yunho breathes a sigh of relief. “Where do you think this leads?”

“Anywhere is better than here,” Mingi grouses, shaking his robes free of dirt and pebbles. “Friend Jongho, would you like to continue with us?”

Jongho stares for so long at him that Yunho begins to feel unnaturally exposed. Yunho bizarrely feels as if he should be holding his arms over his chest like a maiden covering her modesty. 

“Sure.”

The ladder is short compared to their long descent into the oubliette so they must have run uphill at some point while underground. Mingi is the first to pop out at the surface and helps Jongho and Yunho over the lip of what appears to be a flowerpot set in the middle of a very green, very  _ humid  _ hedge maze.

Sweat is already beginning to bead along his temple. Yunho brushes an arm through the mess of dirt and perspiration he can feel slowly oozing down his neck and groans. “Where are we?” 

He squints over the top of the closest hedge trying to find the castle. There’s a hazy fog of humidity obscuring it from vision. 

Mingi doesn’t appear to be affected by the heat and bops happily up and down on the very tips of his toes. “I have never been here before in my life!”

Yunho sighs and turns to their latest addition to the team. “Jongho?”

He shakes his head too. “This is the first time I’ve been up to the surface in...a long time.” 

“Great.” Yunho scrubs at his head. “And we have no idea what happened to San either.”

“Up here!”

Yunho spins around. Amazingly, the fairy is perched on the top of another hedge waving at them and smiling brightly. “I’ve been looking all over for you guys!”

  
  



	4. Chapter 4

**SAN'S INTERLUDE**

San stares helplessly as the trap door clangs shut to once again blend into the mottled brown floor of the would-be jungle. The mirage of misty forest slowly fades back into more of the same sandstone walls the three of them had been traveling through for the last few hours. In the background, the shield goblins start laughing and clapping in celebration of a job well done before shambling away.

The fairy allows his wings to stop moving and lands on the ground in a dead drop. “Shit,” he chokes out in panic while attempting to dig his fingers into the crack of the door he’s too small to budge. “Shit, shit, shit, this wasn’t part of the plan!”

The click of heels announces the presence of someone San really, truly hoped he wouldn’t have to deal with so soon. “Indeed it was not, little fairy.”

San refuses to acknowledge the King in favor of gazing worriedly at the disappearing edge of the trap Yunho and Mingi fell through. “I have a name.”

“Do you?” Hongjoong lets out a small mocking laugh. “I wonder what that could be.”

Wings flicking upward in agitation, San looks up ready to protest only to see the King is staring back at him with eyes blazing white and his mouth pulled down into a moue of displeasure. “Little fairy, he was not intended to see the jungle. That was not part of our arrangement.”

There is nothing more terrifying in all the Kingdom than King Hongjoong possessed by the magic that governs their land. When San was first introduced to him—in the long ago time when the Kingdom was only just starting to crumble—Hongjoong was a bright, smiling, _human_ boy barely older than himself that frowned when residents told him of their previous King’s twisted interest in turning others into goblins for sport. Several citizens, including San himself, were invited to live in the capital city while Hongjoong got used to his newfound powers, turning the ruins surrounding his castle into strangely box-like creations he called ‘apartments’.

The fairy leaned curiously out of one of the stone window sills. “Wow, I’ve never seen huts stacked together like this.”

“They’re not ‘huts’,” Hongjoong laughed and snapped his fingers together clumsily to produce a shabby looking table as a finishing touch to the room. San politely did not point out the different lengths of the furniture legs. “A hut is mostly one central room with a capped roof, right? These are homes with multiple rooms spread out from a central point. They’re what most people live in where I’m from.”

“Humans are weird.” San watched Hongjoong’s teeth elongate just the slightest bit after magicking two more empty buildings across from their position. “Maybe you should slow down with the creation magic, Your Majesty.”

Hongjoong ignored him in favor of floating out of the window to pull a fully formed stone fountain from the earth. The fairy had watched as tendrils of magic subtly changed the shape of the King’s ears.

San was there when Hongjoong’s hair instantaneously grew to resemble their old King’s after he performed a show of magic in front of a crowd of admirers. 

San was there when the old power took hold completely.

He cowers now, wings drooping to touch the ground. “I found the imp like you told me, Your Majesty. Mingi was the one who knocked the wall over.”

“Ah, the fire dragon.” Hongjoong sucks his teeth. When he speaks again his voice comes out strangely echoed, as if it’s coming from a faraway tunnel. “The deal will have to be modified then.”

San feels himself go pale. “What? No! I showed him the way in _and_ I acted out the scene with the imp! You said that was all I had to do besides keep him distracted!”

“And yet he’s landed in the oubliette, beyond the sentient jungle path, _well_ outside of the shifting sands.” The King crouches and San can almost see his reflection in the blank white of his eyes. “I could send you to the bog or dissolve your wings for the breach of contract.”

San gapes in horror. “Your Majesty, please!”

“Quiet.” Hongjoong stands back upright, spine ramrod straight.

“But, Your Majesty—” San shifts to his knees and presses his forehead to the dirt with his palms flat in supplication on either side. “Please can you just tell me where _he_ is? A hint or a vision? _Anything_!” Tears well in the corner of his eyes but the fairy is determined to keep them held back. He'd sooner die than cry in front of this sham of a ruler. “I’ll do whatever you want with Yunho just plea—”

“What part of _quiet_ did you not comprehend, fairy?” Hongjoong’s boots are terrifyingly close to San’s outstretched fingers. “You will have your information when the contract is satisfied and not a moment before.” A tiny crystalline ball the size of a marble rolls next to San’s head. “Give this to Jeong Yunho when you see him.”

It looks unassuming enough. San grabs the small object, still warm from the magic that produced it and slightly electrifying against his fingertips. “What is it?”

“If you want to see your friend again, you will not ask questions and do as I say.” San observes the King’s hand trembling violently until he clenches it tightly into a fist. “Now, on your way. You have a job to do, little fairy.”

Just as Hongjoong snaps his fingers, San imagines he sees color starting to inundate one white iris—the soft brown he remembers from so long ago reappearing. The King’s face looks half furious and half distraught as if he’s outwardly fighting an inner battle. 

San would feel sorry for him if Hongjoong wasn’t the cause of everyone’s misery. He clenches the marble between his hands as the transportation magic takes hold and the dizzying rush of power swirls over his arms and legs. 

Whatever it takes to get Wooyoung back.

  
  



End file.
